Tokyo Needs A Cheonggyecheon

At least that’s what this program, which aired last night, suggests:

June 5th was Enivornment Day in Japan, so the program was aired as a part of a weeklong focus on “Eco” topics. It praises Seoul’s Cheonggyecheon project, which revitalized a river that had been forced underground by urban development, and explores the idea of doing the same thing in Tokyo’s Shibuya area.

While such projects like the Cheonggyecheon restoration make bleak cities look much more beautiful, they are extremely expensive. From Wikipedia:

The project is estimated to have cost over 900 billion won (approximately US$ 900 million). In addition, about 12 trillion won (US$12 billion) is expected to be invested to re-develop the 792,000 square meter region near the stream into a major commercial and residential area over the next five years. Some Korean environmental organizations have criticized the project for its high costs, calling it purely symbolic and not really beneficial to the city’s eco-environment.

Would it be cool to put a big river through Shibuya? Sure. But if the Tokyo city government was going to spend billions of dollars on an environmental project, there might be better options out there…